IthacaLit

In the guise of a beggar, Odysseus returned to Ithaca.

Carol Berg

The Ornithologist Considers The Inertia Of A Small Dead Turtle

She didn't know it was the bellythis small bit of orange strandedon the path. Size of a bumblebee.No flight. No swerve like the scissor-tail she saw for the first time that summerall swirl of yellow toward the telephone wire. Swoop and how the buzzardsride the invisible currents of a spring air. The dead turtle so still. She pickedit up and touched such small claws. Eyesso closed. She watched hard for a breath.She heard a fish take a sudden leap out of the water, the sound of suspiration, as if the pond had taken a much needed breath.

The Ornithologist Searches For Her Constantly Migrating Lover

in the midst of sparrow-flight across the grasslandsin the midst of fiery kingfishers rising my tongue bleeds in the midst of my thoughts diving underwater like auks in the midst of a soul-darkness crouching around me in the midst of dawn while cherry blossoms mate with honey bees in the midst of a painting a red ring around my neck oh to be the pheasant in the midst of my indigo-painted feather rattling

in the midst of a plumed pain in the midst of marshes washing my hungry body oh how long before I am cleaned